Tune into KMFA 89.5 at 3pm today to listen as Music Director Chris Johnson talks to composer Kevin Puts and librettist Mark Campbell about Austin Opera's 30th anniversary season opener The Manchurian Candidate, which opens tomorrow night at the Long Center at 7:30pm.

Based on the the 1959 novel by Richard Condon, the story is a political thriller about the son of a prominent U.S. political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for a Communist conspiracy.  The opera was premiered last spring by the Minnesota Opera and was the second project Puts and Campbell had collaborated on for the company. Their first collaboration for Minnesota Opera, the opera Silent Night” dates back to 2011 and would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 2012 and continues to be staged by opera companies around the country. Austin Opera’s presentation of The Manchurian Candidate will be the first time the piece has been heard since it was premiered last year. 

More Information

Listen to Dianne Donovan's interview with  Maestro Richard Buckley, Artistic Director and Conductor of Austin Opera on the most recent episode of Classical Austin. 

Read Robert Faires' article in the Austin Chronicle, in which he explores contemporary parallels to the work in "Austin Opera Takes Aim at the Election With Its Adaptation of The Manchurian Candidate".